Cuban Food Recipes - Main Course

Fried Chicken Creole (pollo frito a la criolla)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

Cooking instructions:

Chop the chicken in eights.

Crush the garlic cloves with salt and spices and add the Seville orange juice and the onion rings. Pour this mixture over the chicken pieces and marinate for a few hours.

Heat the fat and brown the chicken pieces. When golden brown, add the marinade along with the onion.

Cover the frying pan or pot and simmer for about 25 minutes.

Chicken rice La Chorrera (arroz con pollo a La Chorrera)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

Cooking instructions:

Cut the chicken up in eights and fry it in hot oil. Then, using the same oil, make a sauce with the onions, the parsley, the garlic and the tomatoes. Add the stock and let it boil for some minutes until the chicken is tender. Add the wine, the salt, the saffron, the cumin, the pepper and the water from the sweet red peppers, the green peas and the asparagus. Let it boil and add the rice. Cook for about 30 minutes over low heat or in the oven at 400ºF for the same amount of time or until the rice is soft.

Roasted meat with orange (carne asada con naranja)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

Cooking instructions:

Clean the meat and pierce it all around, several times. In each cut place the prunes, pitted and wrapped in ham.

Marinate the meat with the crushed garlic, the pepper and the Seville orange and cover it with onion rings and the peppers strips. Keep in the marinade for at least 3 hours or overnight if desired.

Sauté the bacon rashers until all the fat come out, drain the meat out of the marinade and brown it in the bacon fat; then add the dry wine and the juice of two oranges.

Cook covered until tender, basting with orange juice as needed, to keep the meat from sticking to the pan.

Barbecue chicken (pollo a la barbacoa)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

Cooking instructions:

Marinate the chicken in crushed garlic and Seville orange juice.

Sift the flour with the salt, the pepper and the paprika; roll the chicken pieces in this mixture and brown in hot butter.

Combine all the sauce ingredients and cook until it comes to a boil.

Pour it over the chicken pieces, cover and bake at 325ºF for about 1¼ hour.

Lobster stew (langosta enchilada)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

Cooking instructions:

Disjoint the lobster tails, wash them and remove the hindgut; chop the tails in chunks of about 4 cm.

If you leave the shell on, the stew will be tastier.

To chop the shell without getting the flesh out, hit it sharply with a cleaver or a big knife.

Stuffed red snapper (pargo relleno)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

Cooking instructions:

Gut the red snapper. Cut it open to remove the spine. Season it with crushed garlic, salt, pepper and lemon juice. Cover with onion rings and peppers. Marinate for 2 hours. Boil the shrimps and the lobsters. Ground the seafood with the ham. Sauté the chopped onion in hot butter. Add the seafood and ground ham. Stir fry for a few minutes. Add the remaining stuffing ingredients and stir to prevent from sticking. Set it aside.

Stuff the red snapper and secure it with toothpicks. Place it on a well greased baking pan over a potato bed. Cover with the onion rings and the pepper left over from the marinade. Bake at 375ºF for about 1 ½ hour. While you are roasting it, baste frequently with butter or oil.

Casserole roasted beefsteak (Bistec Asado en Cazuela)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

Cooking instructions:

Pound the meat and marinate it in crushed garlic and Seville orange juice. Stir fry the marinated meat with onion and pepper until the onion is translucent. Add the marinade and the rest of the ingredients. Cover the pot and simmer until the meat is tender, for about 30 minutes.

Meatballs (albondigas)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

Cooking instructions:

Combine the meat and the onion, the red or green pepper, the milk, the salt, the pepper and the mustard.

Add the beaten eggs and the ground bread or crackers; blend well, shape into balls. Roll the balls in flour and stir fry in hot oil until browned.

Prepare the sauce: sauté the garlic, the onion and the finely chopped pepper in the hot lard, add the remaining ingredients and stir well.

Place the meatballs into the sauce and cook over low heat for about 30 minutes.

Tamale wrapped in maize (corn) leaves (tamal en hojas)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

Cooking instructions:

Blend the ground corn with the water and strain it.

Stir fry the cubed pork and with the resulting fat make a sauce with garlic, onion, pepper, tomato and dry wine. Add it all to the corn. Season it with salt and pepper. Wrap the mixture in maize leaves or pour it into tamale molds. Cook in boiling water for an hour or in a pressure cooker at 15 pounds of pressure for 10 to 15 minutes.

Shredded jerked beef in tomato sauce (Aporreado de tasajo)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

Cooking instructions:

Soak the jerked beef overnight.

The following morning, drain it and boil it in fresh water until tender; let it cool and remove the fat or the skin if it had any.

Pound and shred finely.

Heat the lard and sauté the onion, the garlic, the pepper and the tomatoes or, if you are using tomato sauce, stir it in at the end.

Add the jerked beef and the rest of the ingredients to this sauce.

Cook it over low heat for about ½ hour.
Serve with boiled white rice or boiled vegetables.

Chicken rice

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

Cooking instructions:

Make a good stock with the chicken giblets, including the neck, the wings and the legs.

Quarter the chickens and marinate them in the crushed garlic and the lemon, Seville orange or grapefruit juice.

Heat the oil and brown the chicken quarters in it, then add the finely chopped onion and pepper, the tomato sauce (or the fresh tomatoes seedless and also finely chopped), the liquid from the tinned peppers, green peas and asparagus (grossly this shouldn’t exceed 1 cup), the salt, the pepper, the bay leaf and the saffron or annatto to color it up; pour the stock and the wine in.

When it all comes to a boil, lower the heat and when the chickens are a little tender, add the rice after rinsing it if necessary.

Keep it covered and simmering until the grains are open and the rice is soft, but not altogether dry.

Add the green peas, garnish with peppers and asparagus and serve immediately.

Ropa Vieja (Hash)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

Cooking instructions:

Shred the meat. Slice the onion into thin rings and the pepper into julienne strips.

Crush the garlic and sauté in hot oil with the onion; add the pepper and sauté for a while. Add the meat and the remaining ingredients. Cook covered over low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent from sticking.

You can add the sweet red pepper ground or as garnish.

Lechón (piglet) creole (Lechón a la criolla)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

Cooking instructions:

Crush the garlic along with the dry spices until the mix becomes almost a paste. Add the onion chopped or sliced into thin rings and the Seville orange or grapefruit juice.

Coat the piglet in this marinade, preferably on the inside. Pierce with a knife in several places to allow the seasoning to go in deeply.

Bake at medium temperature (350ºF o 176ºC).

In an outdoor grill, the piglet is always placed with the chest up, but almost at the end it is turned to be evenly roasted.

Squids in ink (calamares en su tinta)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

Cooking instructions:

Clean the squids and set aside the little bags of ink. Slice the squids including the tentacles.

Sauté in hot oil. Add the ingredients of the sauce one at a time: garlic, onion, pepper and parsley. Then add the tomato, the wine, the salt and the ground pepper. Crush the bags of ink in a mortar and mix with some of the sauce; add this mixture to the rest of the sauce. Cook over low heat for about ½ an hour.

If you want to thicken the sauce, you can use some breadcrumbs. At the time of serving, add 2 or 3 tablespoonfuls of finely chopped parsley and more crushed garlic or chopped onion, if desired.

Meat with potatoes (carne con papas)

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

Cooking instructions:

Chop the meat into 5 or 6 cm. cubes and brown it in hot oil or lard.

Add the salt, the paprika, the pepper and the chopped onion, stir and add the crushed cloves of garlic. After having added the spices cook for 2 or 3 minutes.

Toss in the seedless chopped pepper and tomatoes (or tomato sauce).

Cook for another 5 minutes. Add the wine and the water or stock and when the meat is kind of tender, add the potatoes, peeled and cubed, the raisins, the olives and the capers.

Keep cooking until both the meat and the potatoes are tender.